Contrado Starter Box
from €12.00
-
Sustainably made label and tag samples
-
Wide range of fabric, wallpaper and leather samples
-
Includes a personal postcard and business card
-
Small starter box dimensions: 22 x 17 x 5cm
-
Ready same day & made in the UK
-
Sustainably printed
-
Quick worldwide delivery
Ready same day. Explore our
Swatch packs and colour charts available for as little as €1.50 with express delivery
Order a swatch packProduct Description
How it works
Upload your design
We automatically apply your design to the product you selected
Make it perfect
Use our smart tools to get it exactly right and select the finishing options
Preview & checkout
Confirm your designs with our 3D previews and checkout with confidence
1-2 Days Production
Sit back and relax. Your product is on its way!
We offer discounts
We offer discounts on all our products, including bulk, quantity and student discounts. Enjoy great deals whether you're a small business, designer, or student.
| Volume discount | Wholesale | Students |
|---|---|---|
| Based on Quantity | Up to 44% | Up to 0% |
| Find out more | Find out more |
Delivery time & costs
Contrado Starter Box
from €12.00
-
Sustainably made label and tag samples
-
Wide range of fabric, wallpaper and leather samples
-
Includes a personal postcard and business card
-
Small starter box dimensions: 22 x 17 x 5cm
-
Ready same day & made in the UK
-
Sustainably printed
-
Quick worldwide delivery
Explore our
Swatch packs and colour charts available for as little as €1.50 with express delivery
Order a swatch packHelp
More details
Contrado Starter Pack
Want to take the next step in your creative journey? Whether you’re interested in growing sales for your brand, launching an online store, designing a wider range of products to fit your vision or drop shipping and wholesale discounts, we’re here to support you at Contrado. Our Contrado starter pack has a range of unique samples, including a postcard to give you a first look into what we offer as your design partner.
Inside our sample packs are types of wallpaper, real leather, natural, premium and high-performance textiles, including customer favourites like organic cotton, 100% pure silk and beautiful matte wallpaper. All materials are made to order in our London factory and printed in full colour for easy comparison. Also inside the Contrado starter pack is a professionally printed business card, labels and tags, perfect for taking your business to the next level.
Print guidelines & finishing
Print Guideline
What's the best resolution to print in?
We print at 200dpi, which is a good combination of quality and file weight. Ideally, your image should be scaled to 100% at 200dpi; this means that no resizing of your file occurs, preventing any interpolation. Our design interface will have a quality marker next to the design that you have uploaded, this will change colour using a traffic light system and display a message. The message will let you know if the resolution is too low or if you have a good quality image.
Which colour model should I choose? RGB or CMYK?
We advise providing images in the RGB colour space. Specifically using the sRGB image profile, to achieve best colour results.What does this mean? In your editing software choose RGB as the working space, and assign the image profile as sRGB (full name sRGB IEC61966-2.1)
Maximum dimensions
There is no limit on the length of the fabric that you can order. We have a preview design window set up to 5m max to visualise the print, but that's not a print limit. If you'd like to order more, you can increase the quantity (x2 for 10m or x 4 for 20m for e.g.) and then your orders can be as long as you'd like, with a built-in automatic volume discount too. The maximum print width of each fabric can be found on the individual fabric pages or in our design interface.
Do I need to incorporate white space within my design if I want a border or some cutting space?
Yes, that might help you. Always incorporate any extra space or borders into your purchased fabric size. We trim squarely around fabric samples and fabric prints, leaving approximately 5mm white space. Cutting neatly on the line has an additional fee.
What is crocking and why might it occur?
Crocking, which is fading along the creases, often after washing or heavy use, occurs when you digitally print on natural fabrics - more so when dark or dense colours are used. It can be minimised by using a cool hand wash instead of machine washing as the tumbling of the machine is the main cause of this. To avoid entirely, we would advise using a poly fabric.
Do you print on fabric a customer supplies?
Unfortunately not; we like to test meticulously so that we know what gets best results on our fabrics, and our facilities cater perfectly to them. We do however print sublimation paper to order, and if you have access to a heat press you can press your own fabrics easily.
Should I save my file as a TIFF or JPEG?
For multi-coloured or very detailed files we recommend using a tiff format, but they must be flattened. For simple colours and low detail files, a jpeg is fine.
What is the situation with material shrinkage?
Just like many fabric printing processes, there is the potential for shrinkage. Depending on the fabric, please expect and allow between 2-8% shrinkage which you need to plan for in your dimensions. This percentage can vary from print run to print run and between fabrics so we would advise ordering a little more material than you require for your project.
Can I print on both sides of the fabric?
We do not offer to print on both sides of the fabric. A lot of our fabrics are semi-transparent or have some show through and this wouldn't work with double-sided printing. This is not a service that we offer on any of our fabrics.
Can I order labels in another fabric? Will you cut them like you do with the normal fabric labels?
At the moment no, our labels are all printed on the same satin fabric. We may introduce more in the future, but for now, this is the best choice. The labels are all cut the same way. You can order the fabric of your choice and make the labels yourself, but we do not cut different fabric into label format.
How is your fabric printing eco-friendly?
With environmental consciousness in mind, our fabrics are all printed using completely water-based inks. This means no chemicals or solvents are used. Our heat fixing procedure fixes the colours and prints, avoiding the downsides of steaming, such as excess or contaminated water returning into the waste system. We have one facility where we conduct all the printing, production and fulfilment. Rather than roll the fabrics and send them in a tube, we fold them before they are sent out to you. This saves over 150 tubes a week, as well as a lot of space on the delivery van. (For delicate fabrics we ensure to package appropriately).
How will my image scale?
When you upload your design our system will automatically scale it to fit your chosen fabric dimensions. In the 'Product Options' tab, the displayed dimensions under 'Print Size' will show the dimensions of the piece of fabric that you are ordering. For image/design dimensions you need to see the 'Images and Text Tools' tab. You can see and edit the dimensions of the image under the quality information next to the thumbnail.
Why are there slight colour differences between my orders?
We work at improving our colour profiles all the time. Though rare it may happen that from one print run to another, and there could be slight colour differences, this is normal and part of the process when we are constantly improving. It is extremely unlikely that there will be a huge difference (like orange instead of red for example). Please bear in mind such colour variations can be intensified from fabric to fabric due to the varying grains and textures of the fabric.
Sizing For Hemming And Shrinkage
We have a full Cut & Sew service here at Contrado, and are able to hem your fabric prints for a small additional charge. We create a small one- or two-fold hem that typically uses 5 to 20mm of material, depending on the thickness of the fabric. So, for example, if you want a finished piece of fabric that measures 100 x 100cm, you will need to order a size of 101.5cm x 101.5cm to allow for the hem (on top of that please also allow for shrinkage of min 2%). The thicker the fabric, the bigger the hem will be. You can choose to have your prints hemmed with either Black or White thread. On our silk and other light woven fabrics, one hemmed edge will be straight (vertically down the roll) and the other will be slightly rippled. The hemming material allowances are as follows and you need to make your print bigger to accommodate the hem:
- Light Fabrics (20-100gsm): For silks and other light fabrics, we use 6-8mm in the hem (2 fold), so overall width/height will be minus 12-16mm
- Medium Fabrics (101-200gsm): For medium-weight fabrics that fray, we use 15-20mm in the hem (2 fold) so overall width/height will be minus 35-40mm
- Stiff/Heavy/No-fray fabrics: we use 15-20mm in the hem (1 fold) so overall width/height will be minus 35-40mm
How Would you Like the Edge?
We have four finishing options for your fabric order:- As it comes. We cut around your image, leaving a simply scissor cut, perhaps uneven white fabric border.
- Hem with thread. We can hem your fabric with a choice of black or white thread. Please allow 1-2 days for additional production time. See below for information on how hemming affects the size of your print. We offer an overlock hem, as well as a folded hem (one or two fold depending on the fabric) however not all fabrics, are suited to both hem types. If you can see both options, it means both are suitable, and you will be able to choose whichever you prefer.
- Cut on the line. We will cut neatly on the edge of your design. This means that if you have a border around your design we will cut around that border, if your design takes the whole space of the fabric, then we will neatly cut around the edge of that image. Please be aware, when we cut along the line, we have to cut against the grain of the fabric. This is the standard procedure for fabric cutting. This means that with some fabrics, for example, Georgette and Mulmul, which have a slight wave in them, some fraying will occur. This is unavoidable, as the cut follows the grain of the textile.
For further information about our fabrics see our FAQs.
FAQ
Can I print my design on the samples?
Our fabric, leather and wallpaper samples arrive to you already pre-printed in a full-colour Contrado design. This makes it really easy to compare our printing techniques on different fabric textures. At the same time, it should help inspire you to print your own designs with our products online.
What’s unique about this starter pack?
We’re offering a first look at what Contrado has to offer as your design partner, including leather and wallpaper samples and a swatch pack mixed with 100+ of the widest fabric range on the market. Best of all, we include the highest quality accessories like a business card, labels and tags that are useful in building your brand with us, and a personally written postcard to give you a special welcome to our design community.
How quickly will I get my Contrado starter box?
We prepare your Contrado starter box the very same day you place an order with us. Your little box of first looks is carefully made to order in our London factory and shipped to you in as fast as 1-3 days.
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